1. Filed of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card connector which can be mounted on electronic device, and more particularly to a compact card connector capable of containing multiple cards.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Usually, memory cards used for consumptive electronic products, such as digital cameras, MP3 players or the PDAs, mostly can be classified into seven standard memory cards, a multi-media card (MMC), an xD-picture card (XD), a secure digital card (SD), a smart media card (SM), a compact flash card (CF) including type I and type II and the memory stick card (MS). Wherein, the only difference between the SD card and the MMC card is the number of contact pins so that a common slot socket of the read and write apparatus is enough for both of the cards. Such various kinds of memory cards have different shapes, such as a long one, a short one, a thick one, or a thin one. Thus various kinds of card connector apparatuses corresponding to these memory cards have been developed.
An example of a conventional electronic card connector is disclosed U.S. Pat. No. 6,641,413 B2 issued to Kuroda on Nov. 4, 2003. The Kuroda card connector includes a housing including a storage portion, a plurality of first and second terminals arranged in two lines in front and in rear in a card insertion direction of the storage portion, a slide member disposed to be movable in the card insertion direction and lock means for locking the slide member at a card installation position. The slide member provides a presser plate portion to come in contact with the first terminals at a card ejection position to restrain the first terminals from protruding into the storage portion. The slide member further provides a first fastening portion allowing the second card to pass without contact and coming in contact with only a front end portion of the first card, and a second fastening portion behind the first fastening portion contacting with only a front end portion of the second card.
However, the structure of the slide member in Kuroda connector is complex. Moreover, the Kuroda connector arranges the slider member in addition to restrain the terminals, and thus the housing must define additional fixing element such as a groove or a cavity, to address the slide member. It is obviously complicated and maximized, and thus the cost of the connector is relatively high.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,529 B2 issued to Saito et al. on Jun. 11, 2002 discloses another typical card connector. The Saito connector includes a housing including an upper plate, a lower plate and two plates. The lower plate defines a plurality of alternate longer and shorter slots for respectively receiving longer and shorter terminals. However, the lower plate is relatively weak and is easily to be distorted due to the crowded longer and shorter slots. Moreover, the longer and shorter terminals are received in the slots without any holding means, such that the longer and shorter terminals may be deflected up and destroyed by frequently insertion of the insertion cards.
Hence, an improved card connector with reliable terminals is desired to overcome the above-mentioned shortcomings.